ANSWERING QUESTIONS OF MEDITATION PART 2
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5. What do we do when erroneous thinking arises?**
When erroneous thinking arises, we need to turn back to reside in body (knowing the whole body). When we know the body to be impermanent, then erroneous thinking will disappear.
Actually, if we can realize an arising of erroneous thinking it is because we have blessing. If we don’t have enough blessing, erroneous thinking will lead us to a wrong way for last long. So, we have to be careful about every thought, and we also need to do good deeds as much as possible.
If erroneous thinking and also drowsiness and illusion can keep on affecting us when we are meditating, we should understand that it is our past karma that has controlled us. At this point, we must confess our past sins.
6. Why do we get drowsy when meditating?
There are four causes:
• We don’t get enough sleep everyday
• Daily work makes us exhausted
• We don’t know well the whole body
• Past karma controls us.
The above four causes usually make us drowsy.
Thus, if we consider our drowsiness as the one of the above four causes, we have to adjust our daily life such as we need to sleep enough, or schedule daily activities, or practice Qi Gong.
If we have enough sleep everyday, and we are awaked when meditating, but we still get drowsy, we should know that we are controlled by karma. We need to have a thought of repentance and to pray the name of the Buddha so that our mind can get calm.
When our mind gets calm, we should turn back to knowing the whole body.
Knowing the whole body and having the thought of repentance can help us get out of drowsiness.
7. Why do we have to open the eyes when meditating at the first stage?
At the first stage our mind can’t be awake, while practice of meditation needs the awaking mind without thinking. At first, we open the eyes for two reasons:
• First, when the eyes are open we can immediately adjust our body if it’s imbalance.
• Second, we can be awake.
While opening the eyes we can’t completely keep our mind calm, but we need to do that expertly for a time. After our mind gets peaceful and conscious, we can close the eyes. At this time, when the eyes are close our mind can easily concentrate.
8. We should be cautious about illusion and superstition.
Although meditation is the most supernatural meaning, we can still wander to illusion and superstition if we are not caution about it.
Illusion is images or sound appearing in our mind, but we thought they are real, and then we are led to deceiving and unreal worlds until we are not the normal people any more.
This illusion can arise from our mind, or can be impacted by the invisible world. Of course, everything is controlled by karma. It is because our blessing is lost then illusion can appear to bother our mind. If we don’t understand that we can think it real and curiously follow it forever.
When we meditate, our mind is peaceful. It is the time that there appear strange and beautiful worlds, weird creatures, secret dreams, mysterious pasts, or even wonderful preaching; those we call illusion. In order to keep our mind from being shaken and seduced by illusion, we should never pay much attention to spiritual power, but we should only care about accumulating morality and virtue.
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9. Some symptoms we can get when meditating**
a. Headache
There are some causes of headache. We can cure it depending on its cause.
When meditating, we are attracted to something and drifted with thinking of it end-lessly.
In this case, we try to keep that thinking when meditating. It is a mortal sin. That’s why we get headache. We have to pray the name of the Buddha and have a thought of repentance, and then cut off all questions, no matter how much important one of them is. With a firm standpoint, we will gradually get of out attraction of erroneous thinking, and then we can heal our headache.
We may be practicing a method that makes us pay much attention to the head, then Yin energy can be wasted, and then the force will come up to the head in which strain arises.
Here, we need to change another method that makes us pay attention to beneath. For example, we turn back to control the whole body, keep the body motionless and soft, and direct our mind to a spot of stomach.
We may practice a wrong method of contemplation. Or we may contemplate impermanence, emptiness, illusion but we stop at the level of thinking, so it causes a headache to us.
Maybe some wrong thinking about the Buddha or about some venerable monks arises in our mind.
Due to our wrong thinking our blessing is lost, and we get headache. We should trace back our past thinking and repent of it immediately, and then we will get well soon.
Sometimes, headache is caused by our illness such as sinusitis, high blood pressure. Or we may practice meditation under extreme constraint.
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b. Itching
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We feel itched on our face or body as if we were bitten by mosquitoes or ants. It is because of soft stimulus of nerve. When we begin to practice concentration of mind, we will come into conflict between a habit of thinking and a wish of ending thinking. This conflict causes soft stimulus to nerves of skin, and then we feel itching. After a period of time we have practiced meditation diligently, our feeling of itching will disappear.
c. Pain of legs
Due to our karma we usually get pain of legs when meditating. If we are able to bear it we are making up for karma of body. Pain of legs is to compensate for karma of illness. Later on, when we die we die in peace.
d. Breath choked
If we try to control breath up and down, then it can be choked. In the control, we force breath softly. Or if breath is contemplated going deep into flesh, then it can be choked.
Hence, we have to relax the whole body, and know well breath but never interfere in so that it can be naturally in and out.
These are the useful guidelines for practice of breath.
e. Backache
If we sit while the back is bent we may get backache, and our mind can be weaker and weaker. Or if we sit while shoulders are backward we can get chest pains, and our mind will get strained. We have to keep our body suitably straight to avoid getting backache. If our vertebrae are injured or kidney is failure, we need to use herbal medicine.
10. Characteristics of achievement of the Stream of Enlightenment (Sotapanna)
People who enter into the Stream of Enlightenment have characteristics as follows:
The state of mind changing better
The nature of soul becoming noble
Paying perfect homage to the Buddha
Believing deeply in the law of cause and effect
Determining to attain enlightenment
Living a life of altruism
Unable to do evil (it means that they don’t intend to do it, but if they are indifferent to it, acts of evil can still appear)
Not opinionated of rules
Still getting any wrong idea due to their insufficient wisdom
Still getting angry and concerning about worldly matters
Being sure to be released from this world one day, but nobody knows when.
Janna